i5-4460 Bottleneck GTX 960?

[The Magical Turkey]

Hello there!

 

I am going to be building a pc very shortly. The CPU i'm currently planning to get is an i5-4590, which in Australia, is very overpriced at the moment. My question is, would an i5-4460 bottleneck a GTX 960 G1 Gaming, and would the i5-4460 perform worse than a 4590 by a big margin?

 

Thanks in advance

 

And have a great day

[Ostwind]

No and no

[Egoist]

No it wouldn't bottleneck a 980. 

[Faceman]

Hello there!

 

I am going to be building a pc very shortly. The CPU i'm currently planning to get is an i5-4590, which in Australia, is very overpriced at the moment. My question is, would an i5-4460 bottleneck a GTX 960 G1 Gaming, and would the i5-4460 perform worse than a 4590 by a big margin?

 

Thanks in advance

 

And have a great day

Go ahead and buy the i5-4460, just make sure to buy an H97 motherboard to go with it.

 

DO NOT buy a GTX960.  It is an atrocity of a video card.  The lowest end GPU you should be looking at for 1080p gaming is an R9 280.

[lopj245]

Go ahead and buy the i5-4460, just make sure to buy an H97 motherboard to go with it.

 

DO NOT buy a GTX960.  It is an atrocity of a video card.  The lowest end GPU you should be looking at for 1080p gaming is an R9 280.

You don't need a z97 motherboard, a simple bios update will do the trick but since he is asking about this in the first place I would also recommend to purchase a motherboard with out of the box compatibility. And I would like to hear your opinion about the 960, I've heard good things about it so far.  

[Faceman]

You don't need a z97 motherboard, a simple bios update will do the trick but since he is asking about this in the first place I would also recommend to purchase a motherboard with out of the box compatibility. And I would like to hear your opinion about the 960, I've heard good things about it so far.  

You won't be able to do a BIOS update if he doesn't have a Haswell CPU, and the two he mentioned are both Haswell refresh.  Unless he has a buddy who will let him plop his Haswell CPU into an 8 series mobo, buying a 9 series mobo is the best option for the least amount of hassle.  Also, he isn't buying a "k" processor, so no need for Z series, H97 will work just fine and save him some cash.

 

The 960 is possibly the worst GPU launch in recent memory.  It costs an arm and a leg, and performs worse than less expensive alternatives.  At least in the U.S.  Right now the 960 runs about $250-$270, which is what you could buy an R9 290 for by the way and blow it out of the water. The 960 only has 2GB of VRAM, which is becoming more and more important, even at 1080p.  The R9 280 comes with 3GB of VRAM and is only $150. It will massively outperform the 960.  The 960 is a joke, worse than the R9 285.

[Xizerz]

Nope, JayzTwoCents did a video on bottlenecking:

 

 

not even an i3 could bottleneck a 680!

(this is the second time i referred someone to this video on this forum and I only made my account a few ours ago )

[lopj245]

You won't be able to do a BIOS update if he doesn't have a Haswell CPU, and the two he mentioned are both Haswell refresh.  Unless he has a buddy who will let him plop his Haswell CPU into an 8 series mobo, buying a 9 series mobo is the best option for the least amount of hassle.  Also, he isn't buying a "k" processor, so no need for Z series, H97 will work just fine and save him some cash.

 

The 960 is possibly the worst GPU launch in recent memory.  It costs an arm and a leg, and performs worse than less expensive alternatives.  At least in the U.S.  Right now the 960 runs about $250-$270, which is what you could buy an R9 290 for by the way and blow it out of the water. The 960 only has 2GB of VRAM, which is becoming more and more important, even at 1080p.  The R9 280 comes with 3GB of VRAM and is only $150. It will massively outperform the 960.  The 960 is a joke, worse than the R9 285.

The 960 is 200 bucks on Newegg. My i7 4790k works well in my MSI z87-g45. And at 1080p I would think 2GB of gddr5 would suffice unless he's planning on rocking dual panels.  I'm going to look into the 285 thing because that's a great card for the buck and the 960 is about the same price.

[Dabombinable]

A slightly slower i5 4440 doesn't bottleneck a GTX 970 at 1500MHz, so no an i5 4460 will not bottleneck a GTX 960.

[Faceman]

The 960 is 200 bucks on Newegg. My i7 4790k works well in my MSI z87-g45. And at 1080p I would think 2GB of gddr5 would suffice unless he's planning on rocking dual panels.  I'm going to look into the 285 thing because that's a great card for the buck and the 960 is about the same price.

Maybe that particular mobo comes with an updated BIOS out of the box, but not all of them do.  I would definitely not risk buying incompatible components, especially for a first time builder.

 

$210 is still a lot of money for a card that performs worse than a $150 card.  2GB of VRAM is just not enough for the newest games even at 1080p.  Heck, I have 3GB of VRAM and I can't max out textures in every game out to date, using a single 1080p 60Hz monitor and these newer games are starting to require 4GB VRAM for Ultra textures.  The 285 with only 2GB of VRAM is in the same boat, it just doesn't make sense to buy a card with anything less than 3GB of VRAM looking towards the future.

 

Neither the 960 or R9 285 are good bang for the buck.  The lowest end card anyone should be looking at for 1080 gaming is the R9 280 with 3GB of VRAM for $150-$160.

[Clyne]

Maybe that particular mobo comes with an updated BIOS out of the box, but not all of them do.  I would definitely not risk buying incompatible components, especially for a first time builder.

 

$210 is still a lot of money for a card that performs worse than a $150 card.  2GB of VRAM is just not enough for the newest games even at 1080p.  Heck, I have 3GB of VRAM and I can't max out textures in every game out to date, using a single 1080p 60Hz monitor and these newer games are starting to require 4GB VRAM for Ultra textures.  The 285 with only 2GB of VRAM is in the same boat, it just doesn't make sense to buy a card with anything less than 3GB of VRAM looking towards the future.

 

Neither the 960 or R9 285 are good bang for the buck.  The lowest end card anyone should be looking at for 1080 gaming is the R9 280 with 3GB of VRAM for $150-$160.

You know it would be also okay to buy a HD 7870 instead for like 100 dollars because they are cards that can handle 1080P gaming to(probably like medium to high settings)

[Faceman]

You know it would be also okay to buy a HD 7870 instead for like 100 dollars because they are cards that can handle 1080P gaming to(probably like medium to high settings)

Well, yea, if you're on a super budget, you could pick up a 7870 or R9 270 for around $100 brand new if you find the right deal.  It is good enough for 1080p in most games, right now but there is definitely a shift towards more VRAM usage in games, even at 1080p. I still feel that the value of the R9 280 with 3GB of VRAM for just $150 is too good to pass up.  You're talking about playing a game on Ultra compared to High, and you will likely get an extra year or two or three out of the R9 280 because of its 3GB of VRAM.

 

A 2GB VRAM card for $100 is very fair, that feels right.  But a 2GB VRAM card for $210+ that performs worse than a 3GB VRAM card for $150?  Thats crazy unless you absolutely need to have a certain feature unique to Nvidia.

[MageTank]

I agree with @Faceman 100% on the GTX 960. It has 63% less cores than a GTX 970, costs 63% less, but also has half the memory, and half the bandwidth to go along with it. Buying it for the power:wattage is worthless too, and its TDP is also only 20W lower than the GTX 970, so buying it for less heat output in a small form factor scenario would be stupid for the performance you would sacrifice. So many AMD cards offer better price:performance than the GTX 960. Why they even included SLI on the 960 makes no sense to me, because a single 780 is cheaper than 2x 960's, and will still do 1080p better than both of those as SLI brings in frame variance. 

 

There is no reason to spend $200 on a card that when brand new, is still slower than 2 year old hardware. The 670 still competes with it, its only slightly faster than a 760, its slower than a 770, and the Radeons do that price range a lot better than what Nvidia is doing right now. The 960 also still requires the 6 pin connector, so it loses that appeal of throwing it in a case with a weaker PSU, something the 750 TI can do. Take @Faceman's advice on this one, and go for something with more Vram, and much better price:performance. 

[Dabombinable]

I agree with @Faceman 100% on the GTX 960. It has 63% less cores than a GTX 970, costs 63% less, but also has half the memory, and half the bandwidth to go along with it. Buying it for the power:wattage is worthless too, and its TDP is also only 20W lower than the GTX 970, so buying it for less heat output in a small form factor scenario would be stupid for the performance you would sacrifice. So many AMD cards offer better price:performance than the GTX 960. Why they even included SLI on the 960 makes no sense to me, because a single 780 is cheaper than 2x 960's, and will still do 1080p better than both of those as SLI brings in frame variance. 

 

There is no reason to spend $200 on a card that when brand new, is still slower than 2 year old hardware. The 670 still competes with it, its only slightly faster than a 760, its slower than a 770, and the Radeons do that price range a lot better than what Nvidia is doing right now. The 960 also still requires the 6 pin connector, so it loses that appeal of throwing it in a case with a weaker PSU, something the 750 TI can do. Take @Faceman's advice on this one, and go for something with more Vram, and much better price:performance. 

I'd originally thought that it would compete with the 770, since the 650ti was competing with the 460.

[Clyne]

Well, yea, if you're on a super budget, you could pick up a 7870 or R9 270 for around $100 brand new if you find the right deal.  It is good enough for 1080p in most games, right now but there is definitely a shift towards more VRAM usage in games, even at 1080p. I still feel that the value of the R9 280 with 3GB of VRAM for just $150 is too good to pass up.  You're talking about playing a game on Ultra compared to High, and you will likely get an extra year or two or three out of the R9 280 because of its 3GB of VRAM.

 

A 2GB VRAM card for $100 is very fair, that feels right.  But a 2GB VRAM card for $210+ that performs worse than a 3GB VRAM card for $150?  Thats crazy unless you absolutely need to have a certain feature unique to Nvidia.

Yeah.......

[MageTank]

I'd originally thought that it would compete with the 770, since the 650ti was competing with the 460.

I was hoping that would be the case too, but the benches kinda showed otherwise. Certain scenario's showed the 960 slightly coming out on top, but then anything at a higher resolution instantly tanked the 960 to virtually unplayable. That memory bandwidth is just horrid. Delta color compression only gets you so far, lol.

[Faceman]

@Bubblewhale

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr92702gbd5tdheoc

 

Scroll down to the price graph at the bottom.  You can see that it was available for $99 periodically throughout November, not just black friday and Early december.  This is just the very first 270 on PcP, I bet if I went through some more, I would find others being available at the $99 price point within the last month or two.

[Clyne]

@Bubblewhale

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr92702gbd5tdheoc

 

Scroll down to the price graph at the bottom.  You can see that it was available for $99 periodically throughout November, not just black friday and Early december.  This is just the very first 270 on PcP, I bet if I went through some more, I would find others being available at the $99 price point within the last month or two.

Yet i bought my R9 270X during Summer 2014......

[Faceman]

Yet i bought my R9 270X during Summer 2014......

Yup, back when the mining craze was dying off.

[SteveGrabowski]

Hello there!

 

I am going to be building a pc very shortly. The CPU i'm currently planning to get is an i5-4590, which in Australia, is very overpriced at the moment. My question is, would an i5-4460 bottleneck a GTX 960 G1 Gaming, and would the i5-4460 perform worse than a 4590 by a big margin?

 

Thanks in advance

 

And have a great day

 

Holy shit, the cheapest Gigabyte Gaming GTX 960 is $359AU on pcpartpicker. I can't think of a nicer way to put it other than you're getting raped. For $40AU more you can get this R9 290 which will mop the floor with any GTX 960 on the market. It has double the VRAM and just destroys the 960. The R9 290 has performance comparable to the GTX 970.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002

 

 

For $30 AU less than that 960 you could get a Gigabyte R9 280x that handily beats the GTX 960 by roughly 15%, and has 3GB VRAM.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr928xoc3gd

 

The GTX 960 sucks. It's a piece of crap that isn't worth anything close to the $359AU selling price. The people who think the GTX 960 is good seem to have forgotten the main point of a video card is to render frames quickly with great image quality, not to use the least power.

 

The GTX 970 and GTX 980 are great cards, but nvidia screwed the pooch with the GTX 960.

[Dabombinable]

Holy shit, the cheapest Gigabyte Gaming GTX 960 is $359AU on pcpartpicker. I can't think of a nicer way to put it other than you're getting raped. For $40AU more you can get this R9 290 which will mop the floor with any GTX 960 on the market. It has double the VRAM and just destroys the 960. The R9 290 has performance comparable to the GTX 970.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002

 

 

For $30 AU less than that 960 you could get a Gigabyte R9 280x that handily beats the GTX 960 by roughly 15%, and has 3GB VRAM.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr928xoc3gd

 

The GTX 960 sucks. It's a piece of crap that isn't worth anything close to the $359AU selling price. The people who think the GTX 960 is good seem to have forgotten the main point of a video card is to render frames quickly with great image quality, not to use the least power.

That's the way it is over here though, GTX 960 price in AUD = GTX 970 price in USD, GTX 970 price in AUD = GTX 980 price in USD, GTX 980 price in AUD = GTX Titan Black price in USD.

[SteveGrabowski]

That's the way it is over here though, GTX 960 price in AUD = GTX 970 price in USD, GTX 970 price in AUD = GTX 980 price in USD, GTX 980 price in AUD = GTX Titan Black price in USD.

 

The GTX 960 priced as it is in the US is already horrible, but it's just obscene for Aussies. Especially with one of the really nice R9 280x $30AU cheaper when the 280x is way better today and when that performance gap will only widen in the future thanks to the 280x's extra 1GB of memory. But as great a deal as the 280x is relative to the 960, the R9 290 is the real star. That MSI Twin Frozr R9 290 at $399AU = $319US is only about $20US = $25AU more expensive than what it sells for in the US. That card is a steal and that's the one that will make your computer really feel powerful when gaming. The MSI R9 290 murders games at 1080p.

[han_han08]

i've read here in the forum that my i3 can still handle a 760/960 card. hehe

as the guys have said, no =)

[zappian]

No , not even an i3 will bottleneck that card.

 

Do yourself a favor and spend more 30 bucks to get a 280x.

 

Or even betetr buy a sued 280x / 7970 for cheap.

 

The 960 is a bad joke honestly.

[mage7206]

You won't be able to do a BIOS update if he doesn't have a Haswell CPU, and the two he mentioned are both Haswell refresh.  Unless he has a buddy who will let him plop his Haswell CPU into an 8 series mobo, buying a 9 series mobo is the best option for the least amount of hassle.  Also, he isn't buying a "k" processor, so no need for Z series, H97 will work just fine and save him some cash.

 

The 960 is possibly the worst GPU launch in recent memory.  It costs an arm and a leg, and performs worse than less expensive alternatives.  At least in the U.S.  Right now the 960 runs about $250-$270, which is what you could buy an R9 290 for by the way and blow it out of the water. The 960 only has 2GB of VRAM, which is becoming more and more important, even at 1080p.  The R9 280 comes with 3GB of VRAM and is only $150. It will massively outperform the 960.  The 960 is a joke, worse than the R9 285.

they have had improvements in the ram, making 2GB of ram not as big a deal, and its only $200, if you see it for $250-$270 its probably an overly expensive non reference model, considering on nvidias website they say its $200, so yeah. I dont know why you think so poorly of it, doing a lot of research between it and the 980 and 970 its very very good for the $200 price tag on it. Will run almost all new games at 1080p 60+fps at high-ultra settings, great for people with a more budget build and not looking for 4k displays.